“Thank you,” she whispered.
Luc jerked his head to the side, dislodging her exploring fingers. He set her down roughly. She shouldn’t have touched him. Her legs weren’t steady, and her shoes crunched broken glass underfoot. They needed to leave, and fast. The entrance stairwell to the underground shops descended directly from the sidewalk along the street. At the base were Luc’s shoes and clothes. He would need to shift and dress.
“I’ll wait in the carriage,” Ingrid said, and started to walk away.
She felt a tug of resistance. Glancing down, she saw Luc’s talons tangled in the velvet folds of her cloak. Each talon was sharp enough to cut through the velvet with one swipe. But he was holding her back gently, and she didn’t know why. She watched in awe as his talons receded, changing from obsidian hooks to fleshy pink fingers.
He was Luc again. The human Luc she was used to seeing, at least. He stood behind her, stark naked. She kept her eyes fastened on his hand, still balled in the velvet of her cloak. Still holding her as if he didn’t want her to leave.
“We should hurry,” she finally said.
He waited another moment before letting her go. Ingrid ran for the stairs with the nagging feeling that Luc had wanted her to say something else. Exactly what, she didn’t know. Somehow, she still felt as if she had failed.
Morning sun bled through the skeleton-limbed trees surrounding Clos du Vie. Ingrid had thought of Dimitrie on the long ride to the Bois du Boulogne and wondered why he hadn’t arrived at the shopping arcade. Perhaps it was because Luc had already been with her. It made sense, but Dimitrie’s absence bothered her nonetheless. Not that she’d needed him. Or wanted him. Luc was protector enough.
It was still too early to call on Constantine, but his butler showed them into the orangery without a fuss. He didn’t even react when Luc refused to leave Ingrid’s side. Ingrid wouldn’t have dared ask Luc to stay with the carriage, and not just because she feared the mimic might pop up again. The fierce determination in his expression brooked no argument, not from her, and definitely not from Constantine’s butler.
For once, Ingrid appreciated the suffocating heat of the orangery. She hadn’t been able to shake the shivers wracking her body since leaving the arcade. The gathered heat in the glassed-in jungle immediately seeped into her skin and relaxed the tremors.
And then she saw Vander.
He was standing by the garden table in his mustard-colored waistcoat and creamy white shirtsleeves, his coat and bowler hat slung over the curved back of a chair. When he saw her coming through the stand of bamboo, Ingrid forgot herself. She forgot Luc and Constantine, who was seated at the table surrounded by a dozen texts. She ran toward Vander and crashed into his chest. His arms went around her back and he folded her to himself.
“I thought Constantine was supposed to send his carriage for you. What happened?” he asked, his mouth pressed against the side of her head. His breath ruffled her hair. It had come loose from its bun in the arcade and she hadn’t thought to fix it.
Ingrid hadn’t yet told him about the mimic demon, and she didn’t know how to start. She pulled away as a shudder of electricity raked down her arms. Why now? Why now and not when she’d needed it?
When Ingrid didn’t answer, Vander turned toward Luc. “Tell me.”
And so Luc told them. He was brief, and his voice didn’t shake the way Ingrid’s would have. He knew what to say, when Ingrid was certain she would have mumbled incoherently. A demon wanted to kill her. And it had come very close to succeeding.
“This is quite grave, I am afraid,” Constantine said once Luc had concluded. He sat back in his chair. If possible, he appeared even grayer than he had moments before.
“I tried to kill it,” Luc ground out, unmistakably frustrated that he hadn’t been successful. He didn’t like to fail. Though at least she hadn’t been injured. Not even a scratch from all that falling glass. Luc wouldn’t suffer another angel’s burn on Ingrid’s account, not if she could help it.
“Next time, I will kill it,” Vander said.
Luc glared at him, but Constantine interrupted before he could make a retort.
“Mimic demons are almost impossible to destroy. Unlike other demons, mimics can appear and disappear at will. They can vanish before any harm is done to them, whether it’s by a gargoyle’s talons or blessed silver.”
That explained the absence of the death sparks Ingrid had been hoping to see.